Traditionally, much effort has been expended to improve the taste, color, odor or clarity of oral care compositions such as dentifrice (toothpaste), mouth rinse, and the like. Because of the nature of such compositions, the taste of a product may often be of more importance to consumers than the actual efficacy. Since many efficacious oral care components have undesirable taste, color, odor or clarity, efforts to improve these characteristics are common in the art. For taste, one way to remedy an undesirable product taste is to add additional components, such as flavors, that will improve the overall taste experience for the consumer. However, such remedies can be expensive and it may be difficult to entirely mask an undesirable taste. Improvement of color or clarity through dyes or other additives has similar issues.
Activated carbons are generally known in the art as useful for filtering/purifying water (due to their adsorbent behavior and large surface area) by removing undesirable constituents, such as chlorine, sediment, organics, viruses, and volatile organic compounds. They have also been utilized in chemical processing to reduce or eliminate undesirable by-products or contaminants. Activated carbons are known to be less effective at removing minerals, salts, and dissolved inorganic compounds.
In JP 2004107270, activated carbon was also taught to be used to remove odiferous and discoloring species from a phosphate ester surfactant.
Therefore, there is still an interest in finding ways to improve the overall taste, color, odor and/or clarity of food-grade materials such as those used in an oral care composition that are efficacious, cost-effective, and desirable to consumers.